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Friday, October 31, 2008

This is what we get when we let liberals control public education. This is what we get when we let liberals teach kids what to think instead of how to think. This is what we get when we let stupid people vote. This is the natural outcome of liberalism.

People like this woman should be sterilized and their children should be removed for their own protection and in the interest of national security.

This is what Obama means when he says, "Spread the Wealth Around." We're all in trouble.

Monday, October 27, 2008

This week (October 23-31) is Red Ribbon Week. As I was driving around town this week, I noticed an annual occurrence at several of our community’s local schools - gobs of little kids running around donning red clothing and chain link fences decorated with hundreds of little red ribbons. Some of them get really creative and use the ribbons to spell out banner-sized messages on the chain link fabric like “Just Say NO!” and “Drug Free.” Some schools still have old ribbons littering their fences from last year.

And inside school, a weeklong campaign involving poster-making, games, assemblies, and other activities designed to “raise the level of drug awareness,” takes the center of attention as well-meaning teachers and parents really believe that their meaningless, superficial acts of symbolism over substance is really going to “make a difference.” How is it that, by having little children wearing red ribbons, wristbands, or red T-shirts is going to solve the illegal drug use problems in our world? And do we really want the public school system to introduce our little children to the subject anyway?

All of this is organized and promoted nationally by the Red Ribbon Coalition which, by its own admission makes the following statement on their website: “…it is important for you to understand that Red Ribbon Week will not - nor is it intended to - fix the drug problem in America.

A little closer scrutiny of their site reveals that some of their intended goals include “social marketing,” and “social norms marketing” which is, in reality, social engineering.

I think the methods used by my parents’ generation worked pretty well. When I was in elementary school, I didn’t know anything about drugs; all I knew is that everyone stereotyped “drug addicts” as some dark, evil, undesirable element of society that we were to shun and avoid. They were “bad,” we were told, and not to be glamorized or emulated..

My first personal experience with a “drug awareness program” began when I was in Jr. high school. We were warned about the dangers of glue sniffing. For those of you who are under 35 years of age, there was a time when assembling model planes, ships and cars actually required knowing how to follow written instruction and actually gluing the parts together. Today, the nanny government has replaced parental supervision and model building is a snap. But, I digress.

Back in those days, we all had access to model airplane glue and most of us had been using it for years. But suddenly, my curiosity was piqued and I had to find out for myself, what it was like to squirt the glue into a paper bag, bury my head in it, and inhale. The good intentions of well-meaning people to make me aware resulted in my experimentation. But hey, what do I know? You might just dismiss my experience as anecdotal and ludicrous so let me offer something more compelling. Here are some excerpts from an article reported by ABC News and soon to be published in the American Journal of Public Health:

"Youths who saw the campaign ads took from them the message that their peers were using marijuana," the report suggests as a possible reason for its findings. "In turn, those who came to believe that their peers were using marijuana were more likely to initiate use themselves.""Despite extensive funding, governmental agency support, the employment of professional advertising and public relations firms, and consultation with subject-matter experts, the evidence from the evaluation suggests that the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign had no favorable effects on youths' behavior and that it may even have had an unintended and undesirable effect on drug cognitions and use," the report said.

In other words, teens who specifically said they had a lot of exposure to the campaign messages were no less likely to stay away from marijuana than those who did not.

There is also a small amount of evidence that indicates the anti-drug campaign may have had the opposite effect for some teens. In one part of the analysis, teens who recalled seeing 12 or more anti-drug messages per month were actually more likely to start using marijuana than those who had seen fewer anti-drug messages per month.

In their 2004 Abstract on the Effects of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign on Youths, a group of professors and researchers from the University of Pennsylvania reported the results of their study. They determined that most anti-drug advertising campaigns had NO EFFECTS on the children. In fact, more ad exposure predicted LESS INTENTION TO AVOID MAIJUANA USE and WEAKER ANTI-DRUG SOCIAL NORMS.

They concluded that the campaign was unlikely to have had favorable effects on youths and may have had delayed unfavorable effects. The evaluation challenged the usefulness of the campaign.

The bottom line is that the very campaigns and ad programs designed to prevent illegal drug use actually encourage it. But I guess the facts don’t matter. The important thing is how good we all feel about our intentions regardless of the outcomes. But the real question remains; do you want the school, which is probably miserably failing to teach reading, writing, counting, and thinking, to take the responsibility to provide social, behavioral, and moral education to your child? This is one more compelling argument for home-schooling.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

rnold Rhinoceros loved the smell of flowers. When all his friends were out stomping through the jungle and roaring, Arnold would be just as happy gathering a posy of bright forest blooms.

Arnold's parents were worried about him. He was the laughing-stock of the jungle. The parrots made fun of him by perching oon his horn, the monkeys pinched his tail and the deer tapped on his thick scaly skin, but Arnold didn't mind. He just carried on sniffing the sweet flowers and humming a pretty tune to himself.

One day, while Arnold was strolling along the river bank, he met Big Ted the tiger. Everyone was afraid of Big Ted. The tiger roared ferociously, and bared his huge teeth at Arnold. The animals held their breath, wondering what gentle Arnold would do. But Arnold had just taken an extra big sniff of a jungle flower, and his nose was beginning to tickle...

"Aatchooo!" sneezed Arnold. It was the loudest, most terrifying noise Big Ted had ever heard - and he didn't scare easily. He turned on his heels and ran off as fast as he could!

How the other animals laughed - and they never teased Arnold again!

From FIVE MINUTE BEDTIME TALES by DeanIllustrated by Peter Stevensoncopyright (c) 2002 by Egmont Books Limited

Friday, October 24, 2008

I’m not one to church-hop every time things don’t go my way. In 45 five plus years, I have been a member of only two churches and the only reason for the change was a 60 mile move.

But recently I have been wondering what I would look for in a church should I decide to make a change. Then it occurred to me that there are no churches good enough to join. The problem is that churches, as we know them today, should not exist at all. They are all corrupt; they are all unbiblical. I think I will start my own.

Where would we meet? We won’t need to rent a building or purchase a facility. We will just meet in my family room. That’s EASY. An intimate, Christ-centered community established primarily on relationships; just me and my wife and a few other like-minded folks who care to join together with us for support, conversation, and fellowship.

In my church planting plan, the first thing I would do is consider the name. I would avoid any name that would associate my church with a denomination. I would avoid names that might distinguish my church on doctrine. After all, how many Episcopal or United Methodist or Presbyterian churches did the Apostle Paul start? Those kinds of name only serve to be divisive or exclusive. A name like “FAMILY ROOM CHURCH” might be good. It’s comfortable, non-threatening, and inviting. Or maybe I would choose a name that is pretty simple or easy like maybe, yeah, that’s it, “EASY CHURCH.” That’s good; church should not be hard. I’ll keep it simple and EASY.

I think church should be more about ownership, community, unity, and relationships. It should be organic, Not organizational. It should be about the Body, NOT the Business. Church, after all, should not be characterized by non-essential programs and liturgies and complex institutional structures. All that stuff just gets in the way of what church should be. EASY CHURCH will be different.

Do you see how EASY this can be? We wouldn’t be bothered by the pressures that drive so many people to feel like they must “do their church thing” every week. We would not have to attend this service and go to that activity and meet on that committee and take kids to their functions. We would not be compelled to “check off” the list of all the prescribed legalistic elements and formalities of traditional church. It would be guilt-free, EASY CHURCH where we could just come as we are (I could just come in my pajamas), enjoy God, and love others.

And, in my EASY CHURCH, we will have no need of trained clergy. Where in the Bible does it say that pastors must have seminary degrees anyway? The Bible says the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. We would just simply let the Spirit of God flow through our meetings and do whatever He wants to do. If He leads us to worship, we would be free to spend the whole time worshipping. At other times we might just devote the entire time to embracing, loving, and comforting a member who is hurting. Maybe we’ll just sing, or pray, or share. Or maybe someone in the group might be moved to open a book to bring a relevant study for personal growth or perhaps someone might open the Bible and bring a message from God. We will not be forced to sit in rows like mindless spectators to listen to some preacher’s speech, but instead, we will all lovingly interact and dialogue about how God may be speaking to each of us individually. And we would not need to worry about getting out on time to go eat. In my family room, we would just eat together while we do church. That’s biblical. And for communion, we could have real bread and wine; not just some little stale, tasteless wafer with a watered down grape juice teasers.

In EASY CHURCH, our prayers would be more focussed and and our ministries could be centered on meeting our needs. As a small, loving, relational community, we would devote ourselves to each other. We would invest in each member’s individual and personal spiritual formation. Our concerns would be more about our deeds; not our creeds. We could use our time and our spiritual gifts to minister to each other rather than concerning ourselves with fruitless, academic exercises like teaching divisive doctrines. EASY CHURCH will be an environment where it will be EASY to do the Word; not just hear the Word.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more excited I get. Can’t you just feel the love? I think we have all been “doing church” wrong for too many years. A smaller, more primitive, essential, and simple kind of church really makes good sense to me and it is biblical. Like my family room church, the early churches were all house churches.

On second thought, I think I will furnish my family room with comfortable recliners and call my church, “EASY CHAIR CHURCH.”

NOTE

The above is intended to be satire but it is based in reality. Just when we are finally awakening to the dangers of the market-driven, mega-church-growth movement sweeping through the Christian community, it seems that another paradigm shift is gaining popular acceptance and phenomenal momentum right under our noses and may be already at work in many our own churches. And, ironically, the incubators for the new, re-defined church fad, are the small home-groups that, according to Rick Warren, are so much an integral and necessary vehicle for Purpose-Driven church Transitions.

“SIMPLE CHURCH” is a re-definition of church rising from the conversation between Christianity and the culture and worldview of postmodernism and could be seen as a subset of the Emerging Church.

Wikipedia has more information on “SIMPLE CHURCH” here and a Google search will provide plenty of information about this rapidly growing movement.

So my daughter called to tell me that they were driving after dark this week and they saw a car with the lights out. She and her husband were joking that the driver must be an Obama supporter. One of them suggested the possibility that the driver might have an accident and die, in which case he wouldn't be able to vote. The other one countered that that might not neccessarily be so because Acorn is registering dead people to vote for Obama.

That's when my little grandson objected from the back seat, "Huh uh! My Grammy's NOT going to vote for Obama."

Monday, October 20, 2008

If you can’t make a coherent, convincing argument with objective truth, try tricking people with “truthiness.”

According to Wikapedia, "truthiness" is a word that was first coined by Stephen Colbert just moments before taping Comedy Central's premiere episode of The Colbert Report on October 17, 2005, after deciding that the originally scripted word – "truth" – was not absolutely ridiculous enough. "We're not talking about truth, we're talking about something that seems like truth – the truth we want to exist," he explained.

"Truthiness is something that is spoken as if true, that one wants others to believe is true, that said often enough with enough voices orchestrated in behind it, might even sound true, but is not true.” Ken Dryden, Canadian MP

A couple years ago in her opinion piece, The Triumph of “Truthiness,” Suzanne Fields made the observation that truthiness is far more powerful than real truth. Truthiness is what “right-thinkers” conclude with their hearts; not their heads. Rhetoric is driven by emotion, not fact.

Truthiness is consensus thinking. A friend of mine reminded me of how that kind of consensus thinking has shaped our beliefs regarding our own U.S. history. What is the general consensus about how this country recovered from the Great Depression? Most would agree that it was the socialistic programs of the New Deal. But the truth is, regardless how warm and fuzzy people might feel about FDR, the New Deal was a disaster and it was really World War II that energized and mobilized this country back to solvency and growth.

Websters Dictionary defines truthiness like this:Truthiness (noun)1. “truth that comes from the gut, not books” (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Centras “The Colbert Report,” Oct. 2005)2. “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true” (American Dialect Society, Jan. 2006)

In her article, Suzanne Fields referenced an academic study that used magnetic resonance imaging to plumb the working of the brain during fierce ideological arguments. When a group of people, equally divided over ideology, discussed their differences, the centers of the brain bearing on the emotions “lit up,” driving each group to opposite conclusions. Drew Westen, the director of clinical psychology at Emory University, who led the study observed, “Opinions were shaped by emotional impact rather than logic or analysis. The circuits for cognitive reasoning were not engaged.”

And therein is the real power. Engaging the emotions rather than the intellect is the key. Politicians and junk scientists have known and employed that for a long time. A great deal of what is passed as fact, is really nothing more than truthiness; not truth. It starts with political manipulation. It derives from people we want to trust; people whom we used to believe were seekers of truth.

For that reason it is easy for spiritual leaders to manipulate truth through consensus thinking. But they cross the line when they employ truthiness in order to manipulate their own desired outcomes. When their followers are convinced that these “seekers of truth;” are being led by God, truth becomes irrelevant and truthiness prevails. The group consensus is that their subjective beliefs about God’s will is more important than truth.

In other words, they can look you straight in the eye and insist that their less-than-accurate statements are not, in fact, real lies because deep down in their heart of hearts, they really want and believe them to be true. They believe that, because what they are saying or doing is “good,” or “right,” or “pragmatic,” it is justifiable to invent their own version of the truth. Facts do not matter. What matters is how they feel and when they have successfully convinced the majority of their followers to buy it, embrace it, and own it, their truthiness becomes the new reality.

Suzanne Fields suggested that if Descartes were alive today, he would have to write, “I feel, therefore I am.”

“The aim and final reason for all music should be nothing else but the glory of God and the refreshment of the spirit.” Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750

I have always enjoyed singing so I was naturally attracted to Christian music when God saved me. That was during the revolutionary and prolific time of the Gaithers and Ralph Carmichael.It was in those days that I was first asked by our music pastor to sing a solo for a Sunday evening service. I picked a Ralph Carmichael song that had a nice, catchy melody and was heavy on warm-fuzzy sentiment; it was sure to be a crowd-pleaser.When I told my music pastor what I was going to sing, he firmly informed me that I could not sing that song in our church. He explained that there were some doctrinal problems with it. At the time, I thought he was a bit overly stuffy but, nevertheless, I submitted to his leadership and chose another "approved" song.

I am thankful now for that kind of pastoral leadership in our church then. Those were the days when even the music in the church was a matter of pastoral oversight. That is what pastoral leadership is required to do; to guard the doctrinal purity and the truth of the Word communicated whether it is spoken, written or sung. As it turns out, he was right and I was young and lacking in wisdom and discernment.

The Church needs more of that kind of pastoral leadership to teach people what is right and appropriate when it comes together for corporate worship. Sadly, too many modern churches have removed the responsibility of music from the pastors and relegated it to praise and worship leaders, many of whom lack sufficient understanding of doctrine or true biblical praise or worship, but who are skilled at leading the congregation in, as one person has described it, “mindless eyes-closing, body-swaying, being-moved-by-the-pretty-tune singing.”45

A popular textbook written in 1812 was used in public education for many years. It was a favorite of Abraham Lincoln’s and this is what it taught about character:“Public character is no evidence of true greatness, for a public character is often an artificial character.” In other words, if you want to know what a man is really like, you should watch him when he thinks no one is looking.

The textbook used a real life example to illustrate. The man was a Brigadier General in the Continental Army and a patriot leader in the American Revolution. He was a war hero of the battle of Saratoga, the battle that turned the war. His public credentials were quite impressive.

But he also had a private life. It was his responsibility to dispatch food and supplies to the troops at Valley Forge but he sold wagonloads of their provisions on the black market while Washington’s men were freezing, starving and dying. Later, Benedict Arnold sold out West Point to the British for money. He was tried and convicted of treason.

His private life was a better indicator of his true character than his public life. The textbook continued with this statement. “It is in the private life that we are to look for the man. Private life is always real life; that’s where a man is always sure to act himself.”

In the late 1800’s Robert Ingersol espoused that leaders should be elected for their public competence and their private lives should be disregarded.

Does it really matter whom a candidate associates with or what questionable moral and political principles he has articulated in the past or how he has been enriched at public expense? It is frightening how so many people today are willing to overlook a person’s private life in the political or public arena. If Benedict Arnold were alive today, he might be very electable.

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan.” Proverbs 29:2.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

I don't know who authored this; several variations have been posted to the internet without attribution. Nevertheless, it is good advice and appropriate for Clergy Appreciation Month (October).

FOR THE PASTOR

Make him a minister of the Word. Fling him into the office, tear the “office” sign from the door, and nail on the sign “STUDY.” Take him off the mailing list. Lock him up with his books and his typewriter and his Bible. Slam him down on his knees before text, and broken hearts and flick of lives of a superficial flock and a Holy God. Force him to be the one man in our surfeited communities who knows about God.

Throw him into the ring to box with God until he learns how short his arms are. Engage him to wrestle with God all the night through and let him come out only when he’s bruised and beaten to be a blessing. Set a time clock on him that will imprison him with thought and writing about God for forty hours a week. Shut his mouth forever spouting remarks and stop his tongue forever tripping lightly over every non-essential. Require him to have something to say before he dares break the silence.

Bend his knees in the lonesome valley. Fire him from the PTA. Cancel his country club membership. Burn his eyes with weary study. Wreck his emotional poise with worry for God and make him exchange his pious stance for a humble walk with God and man. Make him spend and be spent for the Glory of God; rip out his telephone, burn up his ecclesiastical success sheets; diffuse his glad hand. Put water in his gas tank. Give him a Bible and tie him to the pulpit and make him preach the Word of the living God. Test him; quiz him; examine him. Humiliate him for his ignorance of things divine. Shame him for his good comprehension of finances, batting averages, and political infighting. Laugh at his frustrated effort to play psychiatrist. Form a choir and raise a chant and haunt him with it night and day, “SIR, WE WOULD SEE JESUS!”

When at long last the pastor dares assay the pulpit, ask him if he has a word from God. If he does not, then dismiss him. Tell him you can read the morning paper, digest the nightly commentaries and think through the day’s superficial problems and manage the community’s weary drives and bless the sordid baked potatoes and green beans ad infinitum better than he can. Command him not to come back until he’s read and reread, written and rewritten until he can stand up, worn and forlorn and say, “THUS SAITH THE LORD.”

Break him across the board of his ill-gotten popularity. Smack him hard with his own prestige. Corner him with questions about God. Cover him with demands about celestial wisdom and give him no escape until he’s back against the wall of the Word. And sit down before him and listen to the only word he has left; God’s Word. Let him be totally ignorant of the downstreet gossip. But give him a chapter and order him to walk around it, camp on it, sup with it, and come at last to speak it backward and forward until what he says about it, rings with the truth of eternity.

And when he’s burned out by the flaming Word, when he’s consumed at last by the fiery grace blazing through him, and when he’s privileged to translate the Word of God to man finally transferred from earth to heaven, then bear him away gently and blow a muted trumpet and lay him down softly, place a two-edged sword on his coffin and raise the tomb triumphant, for he was a brave soldier of the Word, and ere he died, he had become a spokesman for his God.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Whether or not Obama is "THE ONE" is arguable and I certainly wouldn't go so far as to speculate that he is the Antichrist, BUT it sure seems like the world is anxiously racing to crown and embrace a KING OF THE EARTH.

Watcher's Lamp is a blog dedicated to monitoring spiritual deception and world events from a Biblical perspective. Here are several headlines of recent new events from around the world in just the past few days:

My jury service is over. We convicted the slimeball on four counts of sexual assault and abuse with young girls, one of which was his nine-year-old daughter.

One remark during the cross-examination especially caught my attention. In her testimony, the girl said that, when he was confronted about his misdeed, her father said, “Well, if I did anything that upset you, I’m sorry.”

What do you do with lame, disingenuous apologies like that? That happens frequently. Someone does some outrageous, hurtful deed and then, when confronted, flippantly offers that kind of a meaningless, half-hearted response. What does that mean anyway? Does it mean if you’re not upset, then he’s not really sorry? Does it mean he’s only sorry that you have been offended but he’s not remorseful about his deed? Or does it mean that he is only sorry that he was found out?

I have been told by someone who has repeatedly and habitually committed the same trespass, that, just because he said, “sorry” I must forgive him because Jesus commanded us to forgive seventy times seven. In this classic example of deflection, suddenly the attention is off the offender and turned to the supposed “sin” of the offended for not being willing to forgive.

And then there is this insane statement that I often hear. We must forgive unconditionally because God forgives us unconditionally. But is that true? Does God forgive us unconditionally? I just don’t see it that way.

The Apostle Paul clearly describes two kinds of remorse for sin. One kind is like the lame apology described above. It is the “sorrow of the world” and it produces death. True sorrow for sin produces repentance worthy of exoneration and leads to salvation which is the condition for real forgiveness.

"For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it. For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter." 2Corinthians 7:8-11

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Who would have thought a year ago that most conservatives would actually be excited about the possibility of electing John McCain for president. At best he is a moderate but the alternative is unthinkable. Barack Obama is a true "Lefty."

Some people call McCain a "RINO" (Republican In Name Only). Rush Limbaugh coined a new term that I think is more appropriate -"Jello Republicans".

What choice do we really have? There are NO CONSERVATIVE candidates in this coming election - until now.

About Me

Most people don’t care who I am or what I do. For the most part, people really only care about what others think. The best way to know me is to know what I think. What I think is influenced by my conservative, fundamentalist, Christian world-view.
This blog is an expression of my ideas and opinions that derive from that world-view and the publication of my ideas is protected by the First Amendment. It is intentionally provocative, probably annoying, and often wrapped in satirical and sometimes sarcastic wit.
Many people will pretend that they don’t care about what I think but deep down inside, I know they really do! They want to know if my opinions agree with theirs. If so, they will like me. If not, they should just ignore me and go away but they probably won’t. They will creep around on my blog just to see what kind of things they can find about which to be outraged and critical, not on merit or substance, but on my insensitive humor or politically incorrect audacity. They may attack me with anonymous comments or hate mail. But that's OK. I will just continue laffing at things I find absurd.

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MARRIAGE

And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

And Adam said:

“This is now bone of my bonesAnd flesh of my flesh;She shall be called Woman,Because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:18, 21, 23-24

Jesus said, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Matthew 19:4-6

Marriage was created and defined by God and confirmed by Jesus. End of Argument.

"I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love."

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